The BC Civil Liberties Association is supporting the call for a public inquiry into alleged widespread violations of the right to peaceful protest, the right to access counsel after arrest, the right to reasonable conditions in jail, the right to be free from excessive police use of force, the right not to be arbitrarily detained, and the right to free assembly during the recent G8/G20 summit in Toronto, Ontario.

“We are concerned that the policing for the G8/G20 protest failed on a massive level for two reasons,” said Micheal Vonn, Policy Director for the BCCLA. “First, the security operation failed to prevent approximately an hour and a half of rioting on the busiest streets in Toronto, despite more than a billion dollars being spent to prevent exactly that type of activity; second, following and apparently in response to that failure, the policing appeared to be directed in a very aggressive way at peaceful protesters, eliminating their rights to free speech and assembly.” Numerous reports coming from groups in Toronto allege serious and systemic conduct by the Integrated Security Unit and Toronto Police that grossly undermined many fundamental political rights of Canadians who were in the city during the summit. The Toronto Police have proposed an internal policy review to address the issues involved.

“There is little that an internal policy review conducted by the Toronto Police can do to get to the bottom of concerns that involved all branches of the G20 Integrated Security Unit,” said Vonn. “The summit saw the largest mass arrests in Canadian history, granting of questionable new police powers and vast numbers of reports of illegal searches, inadequate detention facilities and denial of the right to counsel. Concerns of this scope and scale go far beyond the capacity of an internal complaints process and call out for a public inquiry.”

The BCCLA has made formal offers of assistance and support to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International Canada, two Ontario-based organizations that had observers and members on the front lines of the incident there. The BCCLA is also writing to the Ontario and Canadian governments to demand a public accounting for what took place in Toronto during the summit.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Micheal Vonn, Policy Director, 604-687-6001
David Eby, Executive Director, 778-865-7997